Making Templates for Volusion and Netsuite Comparison

Recently I was ordered to move a customer’s site to Volusion and to Netsuite templates system. So I had to study their template editing capabilities. And I must tell you this both template systems suck. But Netsuite was even worse. Don’t know anything about their order management software, just discussing their site advanced editing capabilities. Both packages have advanced editing option, not good enough to produce a decent design and XHTML. You can’t edit whole HTML code of any given page on either. But overall on Volusion you may edit more things then on Netsuite. Let’s make it clear: on both systems you’ll not be able to edit everything you want either way.

On Volusion you can edit main template of the site inside their system, in your browser. So I was able to get rid of their tables, and to make divs as a frame. On Netsuite you”ll have a table for that. And you have an option to edit CSS file directly from i.e. Dreamweaver. Also you can put files to FTP from ftp software. But anyway you”ll have tables in pages contents that you can’t edit at all.

On Netsuite you must edit everything in your browser. And you can’t edit the main layout of the template. You can’t edit left navigation menu, which behaves very weird, and I had to put it static, to achieve a decent look. Not to say they have an option to edit left menu mainframe HTML, bit this option didn’t worked at all. My changes never showed on site. And I had things stacked and showing up on site long hours after I edited them.

Again, I can’t advice about their clients or order management systems, but for a site design customization they both can drive you mad, if you want to put there a normal design. Actually I hate them both. But Volusion was less pain.

16 Responses to Making Templates for Volusion and Netsuite Comparison

Thank you for your feedback on designing on our platform. We have a design team in-house who can help you with design changes as well if you get stuck. Feel free to contact our Services team at 1-800-646-3517 x 105 for help with that.

From a functionality and budget standpoint, Volusion is definitely the way to go. Many other platforms (Netsuite being one) lack in functionality and tend to charge way too much for their service. Volusion offers a fully functioning shopping cart for as little as $29/month and the features you need are built in. Not only that, but Volusion has 24/7 live technical support! Our customer satisfaction rating is excellent and our support has a lot to do with that.

Thank you again for your feedback, and feel free to contact us with any questions.

Yeah, Volusion doesn’t give you much access to the full template. You can change the general layout but once Volusion starts injecting table, inside of tables, inside of tables, without IDs on any of them, it’s pretty much designer hell.

I am currently pounding my head into the wall, dealing with a Volusion hosted site.

1.Why should I pay you to make the changes anyone who has taken a single class in html can make? Yes you let me into the outer shell of Volusions templating, but your SEO optimization is mediocre at best and I cant improve it because I’m not allowed access to deeper levels of coding. 2.Your “Service Team” does not provide any actual technical support. (Well maybe its technical if your my grandmother.) 3.Being able to work with Dreamweaver and FTP is not something you should be proud about. It’s standard, or your not worth using, so i guess that’s a bar you pass. 4. You are priced way above industry standard in regards to memory usage. Hell maybe there are some people who charge more, but so what there are way better deals out there. 5. The only thing Volusion has going for it is its back end order management, and that is not enough to make it worth it after the frustrations of dealing with there “Support”.

Volusions limitations will make it difficult for any company to dynamically develop there site as there business grows.

Right there with you. I’m currently working on a Volusion site for a client and I can’t believe how archaic their system is for web developers. It is a pain in the ass. Their customer support knows nothing about coding and just directs you to the “design team.” The last guy I dealt with didn’t even know what a div was so I just exited out of chat. I should have researched this platform more before signing onto this project. I assumed it let developers code freely, but no, there is one template for every page and I can’t even target the specific pages with CSS. It’s a horse shit system.

That seems to be Volusions bloody reply to everything…use their in house design team…well for those on a budget, we would like to learn ourselves. Also, how can Volusion claim the eaze of working with dreamweaver when it clearly states on their site do not … (DO NOT) edit your template with dreamweaver…. way to go volusion, contradict yourselfs as much as u like….ur “ease and access” you clainm to provide is only available if your willing to hand over ur money n have someone else at volusion customize ur site. Iggy is right, and what sucks more is, you claim the templates are fully customizable, but the general layout sure is a pain, who knows if it can be done?? all i know is, being sucked into volusion was the worst mistake i made…. =( Iv paid for a month, but looking elsewhere now

If you are web developer and want to do some customization in your website volusion is not what you wanted its only for users better use wordpress or joomla , and you can find lot of tutorias how to customize them

I have been working with a company who uses volusion alot. Personally with design BigCommerce tends to beat the pack. But if you REALLY wanted to do ecommerce right I would use magento or prestashop due to the amazing design capabilities and functionality. Who needs hosted ecommerce anyways.

Some companies need the sales tools. We’ve outgrown all the third party tools like quickbooks and so on, so we’re needing something all inclusive that some of these companies offer. I just wish they’d open their site to designers.

so what would be your suggestion guys? drop volusion? I’m about to start on a project and thought volusion was decent yet from reading the comments, i’m really turned off specially that we can’t access the templates directly and at $6000 for a “elite” template just to add some functionality that in wordpress can be added with a couple of clicks is complete absurd. any suggestions?

So, for a company who has an inhouse graphic and web designer, who has a better idea than anyone what the company’s needs are, I’m beating my head against my desk to find some resources to build a custom template. None of these templates really seem to fit the needs. We’re moving away from volusion into netsuite, and this wasn’t encouraging. lol